Hunting the Huntress
by Nubi95
Summary: Following the departure of Oliver and Felicity, the safety of Star City has been left in the hands of Black Canary, Spartan, and Speedy. Laurel struggles to find balance between her night and day job, determined to keep her city safe as both Black Canary and Assistant District Attorney. However, this is threatened by the arrival of a familiar face, Helena Bertinelli, the Huntress.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

Laurel ducked sideways as a fist flew through the air, exactly where her head had been just a second before. The force of the blow ruffled her hair as his knuckles grazed the side of her head.

Oliver shot her an apologetic look that vanished immediately as she returned a swift kick to his sternum. He rocked back a few paces, but recovered quickly. He always seemed to be able to anticipate her moves far easier than she could his.

Sweat was dripping down her back and her face felt flushed. They had been sparring for almost an hour now and her body was painfully aware of it. Her muscles protested as she bounced on the balls of her feet, watching for his next strike. She would not let him see how taxing this was to her. She needed him to know she was capable.

Oliver, by contrast, seemed as if he had only just started exercising, a faint shimmer to his forehead the only indication that he was exerting himself.

Faster than she expected, he came at her in a series of rapid punches and jabs that she deflected more out of instinct than any conscious move. Her hands were raised in front of her face, the way Wildcat had taught her all those months ago, and she used forearm and elbow to bat away his powerful blows. She darted back out of his reach before he could launch another attack.

"Good," he encouraged, though his facial expression remained impassive.

She didn't know if it was his encouragement, so rarely given, or her eagerness to end the fight that caused it, but she suddenly launched herself at him. He may have been significantly stronger than her, but she was smaller and faster, and her fist cracked against his chin before he had time to react. Eager not to lose the upper hand, she kicked at his hard stomach. He swayed backwards, about to fall.

 _Finally_ , she thought gleefully.

She kicked again, the final strike to put him on his back, but he caught her outstretched foot in one hand, inches from his face. Her eyes met his for one fateful second and then he twisted her ankle as he kicked her other leg out from underneath her. She fell back onto the training mats with a dull thud, her head colliding with the floor.

The room swam above her, the harsh lights blinding her for a brief second before Oliver's silhouette appeared above her. The Arrowcave came back into focus as he offered her a hand. She took it gratefully and he pulled her to her feet.

"What did you do wrong?" he asked, still holding onto her hand.

"I don't know," she said, tugging out of his grip in irritation. "I thought I had you."

"Exactly," he said, walking over to retrieve his towel. "You _thought_ you had me. You had good defense there, but you dropped it as soon as you thought you had the advantage."

He tossed her own towel at her and she gratefully wiped the sweat from her face.

"Aren't you going to miss this?" She asked him.

He contemplated her question as she contemplated him. It was strange to think he would soon be gone. He had been a huge part of her life: lover, friend, and hero, saving her life more times than she could count as the Arrow, and changing her life in more ways than she could fathom as Oliver Queen.

"Probably," he said, looking intensely at the bow hanging from the wall. "You know how it is, Laurel, you've done this long enough. It's addictive. Being out there, helping people, it will always be something I want."

She nodded. She did know how it is. In fact, she knew about addiction more than she would care to admit. Could she give up being a vigilante if she wanted to?

Yes, she decided. She could. She had started this because the law system wasn't good enough to keep bad people from harming innocents, but one day she would fix that system and then there would be no need for vigilantes. She was sure of that.

"When do you leave?" She asked him, hoping it came across as a casual question and did not reveal the depth of emotion she felt at the prospect.

"Tomorrow morning," he said wistfully, as if he couldn't quite believe it himself.

She suddenly remembered the last time he left her, the day he disappeared with her sister on the Queen's Gambit, both presumed dead for years. The day her life fell apart. She threw her arms around him tightly, surprising them both. His arms came up and cradled her to him in all too familiar embrace.

"It's okay, Laurel. We'll be back to visit before you know it. We're not leaving forever."

"I know," she said, pulling away from him gently. "I'm just really happy for both of you. And don't worry, we'll keep our city safe while you're gone."

He smiled, a rare smile that reached his eyes and reminded her of the mischievous boy he used to be when they were younger.

"I never doubted it," he said. "Dinah Laurel Lance, you've been saving this city long before I started, and now it has Black Canary too. I feel sorry for anyone who comes here looking for trouble."


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Bullets sprayed the ground in front of her, sending shards of concrete flying in all directions. She ducked behind the metal stairwell she was using for cover. Her assailants continued to fire blindly in her direction. The noise was deafening.

"Black Canary? Are you all right?" Diggle's concerned voice queried from the radio device in her ear.

"I'm fine." She said, hauling herself up the metal staircase. "That way was blocked off. I'm going to go high and try get the drop on them."

A bullet sparked against the metal railing a mere inch from her hand. _Too close._

"Think you can distract them?" She asked him. "I think my luck's running out up here."

"We've got you, Laure- I mean…Black Canary," choked Thea. "Sorry, still getting used to the whole code name thing."

Gunfire sounded from a different direction below her this time, and the armed men below turned their attention to Diggle's shots. She couldn't hear Thea's arrows as they met their targets, but she knew they would be causing just as much damage as Diggle's rubber bullets.

With her path up the staircase suddenly a great deal less dangerous, she hurtled up it. The thud of her leather boots against metal was too loud for her liking, but it was largely covered up by the cries and gunfire below.

The staircase eventually let out to a small metal balcony several stories above the ground. With this vantage point she could clearly see the layout of the men below her.

They were in an alley in one of the most dangerous areas of the Glades. They had tracked the Bulgarian gang, a relatively new crime group, to one of their bases of operations. They had been selling huge amounts of cocaine across the city and the police hadn't been able to catch them. Felicity's leftover satellite tracking software had more success. The plan was to corner them. Diggle and Thea would approach from the north end of the street and laurel from the south, effectively sandwiching them in the middle. But they'd spotted her and opened fire before they could make a move.

There were at least twelve of them in and around the pawnshop they were using as a front. They were firing off endless rounds of bullets in the direction of Diggle and Thea, who were returning fire in equal measure. She could see Speedy's red suit darting between parked cars and dumpsters as she looked for new angles to shoot from, her red arrows finding their mark more often than she missed. She was taking to archery very well. Oliver would have been proud.

There was movement amongst the men below. They had noticed that the south end of the street was clear and were getting ready to make a run for it. She couldn't allow that.

 _This is going to hurt_ , she thought resignedly as she put one leg over the bannister of the railing and then the other. She dropped hard and fast to the unyielding concrete below, twisting her body into a roll as she hit the ground, minimizing the impact. It still hurt.

Several heads swivelled at her sudden arrival. Guns pointed in her direction.

She screamed. Her collar amplified the sound waves of her own voice and produced a sonic shriek that ripped through the night. The Canary Cry this close to these men could be deafening, many of them dropped their weapons to clasp their hands over their ears. Some fell to the ground clutching their head as her scream ripped through them. The man's nose closest to her started to bleed.

Her scream dissipated as she ran out of breath. She felt lightheaded, her brain deprived of oxygen for a brief second. But it was a second she could not afford to allow them. She flew at the man with the bloody nose as she pulled her baton from its holster. She cracked it across his temples twice and he crumpled to the ground.

She moved amongst the rest of the men, eager to take advantage of their incapacity. Thea and Diggle had the same idea. They joined the fight in earnest, raining down blows on the gang members who were starting to pull themselves together.

Diggle's newly fashioned helmet, to complete his vigilante identity as Spartan, deflected a knife that would have taken out his eye otherwise. She was suddenly very grateful to Oliver for suggesting it.

She lost track of both of them as two of the gang members came at her. She parried both of their attacks. They were not incredibly skilled fighters, but there were two of them, and she took more hits than she would have liked. One backhanded her across the face and she was flung to one side, more out of surprise than pain. She wiped her gloved hand across her mouth and it came away bloody. Her lip had cut.

The other man swung his fist at her head but she twisted out of the way at the last moment and the momentum carried him too far forward, throwing him off balance. She kicked his legs out from underneath him and then kicked him hard in the side of the head. He didn't get back up.

She punched the man who had backhanded her hard in the throat, then again in the stomach. He bent over in pain and she drove her elbow down onto the back of his skull. He joined his friend on the concrete.

When she looked up, the alley was full of unconscious or incapacitated men writhing around in pain, some with arrows sticking out of legs and shoulders. Diggle was holstering his gun.

Thea came running out of the pawnshop.

"Guys!" She shouted. "There's nothing here! They must be hiding it somewhere else!"

Just as she had said the words, the metal door to a garage next to the pawnshop blew open, hitting the other side of the alley. A black truck followed it, its tires screeching as it made a sharp turn into the alley. Laurel and Diggle only had a moment to plaster themselves against the wall before the truck hurtled past where they had been standing.

Diggle shot at the truck's tires as it sped away but they were deflected by the truck's hard exterior shell. The truck drove out of sight, leaving Laurel, Diggle, and Thea looking on helplessly.

Diggle was combing through the CCTV footage from all the traffic cams in the area around the alley where the Bulgarian gang had fled.

"Why do the bad guys always drive the most inconspicuous getaway cars?" He called out, thumping the keyboard in front of him.

Laurel was peeling off her Black Canary suit in one of the back rooms of the Arrowcave. It was dotted with blood, she didn't know who's, and would need to be washed. She sighed, shoving the leather garments into her bag along with her mask. She could have wept with happiness as she pulled the peroxide blonde wig from her head, letting her own hair breathe for the first time in hours. She hated the wig, but it was part of her identity as the Black Canary and she worried she would be too recognisable without it. She didn't have a hood like the Arrow or Speedy, or a helmet like Spartan. The wig would have to do.

"No luck?" she asked hesitantly as she emerged into the main room after changing back into her pantsuit. Diggle had his head in his hands, staring at endless cars driving across the computer screen.

"This could take me hours," he mumbled into his hands. "Felicity would have found them already…"

She put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. She felt Felicity's absence from the Arrowcave like a lost limb. She had become so accustomed to hearing her voice when they were out in the field, advising them of their opponent's movements, making sarcastic remarks at Oliver, that it felt like they had all been deafened. She missed Oliver too. Even though she didn't always agree with him, he always knew what to do. He always had a plan. Diggle and Oliver had parted ways on bad terms but she knew Diggle missed his friend. It had been a strange past month adjusting to life without them.

"You want me to stay?" she offered, even though her eyes burned with fatigue. "I can help you look."

He smiled up at her.

"Thanks, Laurel, but that's okay. You should go home. Have you heard anything from your dad?"

"I messaged him the location of the Bulgarians we took down and he arrested them. But without proof of the drugs they're selling, the police can't hold them for long. If we want to charge these guys and put them away, we're going to need to find that van."

Thea emerged from a back room. She had changed back into her own clothes. She stifled a yawn with her hand.

"So what's the plan?"

"I'm going to go through all the CCTV footage I can find until I trace these guys back to their new hideout. Then tomorrow night we can go after them again and get them for good this time. You two go home. Get some rest. There's no need for all of us to stay up all night."

Laurel and Thea grudgingly bid him goodnight. Thea looked like she was going to fall asleep standing up, her eyes kept drooping involuntarily. Laurel put an arm around her shoulders as they exited the Queen Consolidated building the Arrowcave was hidden in.

"Come on," she said, leading her towards her car. "Let me give you a ride home."

Thea smiled tightly, as if the thought did not appeal to her.

"Would it be all right if I stayed at yours tonight? I don't really like being in my apartment alone. Not after what happened…"

Thea's hand absentmindedly rested on the phantom wound in her chest, where R'as sl Ghul had stabbed her with a sword only a few months ago.

Laurel held her closer.

"Of course you can."

By the time she had driven to her apartment on the other side of the city, the sun was rising. She went to fetch a blanket for Thea to sleep under on the couch, only to find that she was already fast asleep when she returned. She tucked the blanket snugly around her and left her to rest.

Laurel had barely shut the door to her bedroom when she flopped limply onto the mattress, still fully clothed. She was fast asleep before her head hit the pillow. The easy job was over, now came the hard part. Tomorrow she had to be a lawyer.


	3. Chapter 2

"Are you drinking again, Laurel?" asked the District Attorney for Star City, tapping her manicured nails on the desk in front of her.

She suddenly wished she were.

"No," she replied, holding the woman's steady gaze. "I swear I'm not."

Laurel squared her shoulders as she said so, she hadn't even realised she had been slouching. She shuddered at how she must look to the DA. After a pitiful three hours sleep that morning, her alarm clock had jerked her awake, and she had went about her morning routine like a zombie, careful to not make any noise and wake Thea up, who was probably still sleeping soundly. About a litre of coffee and a stale bagel had got her into work barely on time, but she felt like she was moving through cotton wool, fighting not to fall asleep at her desk. That was when the DA had called for an unscheduled meeting.

"Really?" the woman asked her, her piercing blue gaze pinning laurel to her chair like she was a child facing the principal. "Because you look like you've been on a week-long bender. What happened to your face?"

Laurel's hand came up to stroke the cut on her bottom lip that she had almost forgotten about. She flinched. It was tender.

"Um…boxing," she lied. "You remember how I used to take boxing classes? Well I started them up again. Got to keep fit somehow, right?" She laughed, an awkward pained sound.

The DA did not look convinced.

"I have to say I'm concerned, Laurel. You've let many of your cases stack up over the last few weeks, people in the office say you're falling asleep during office hours, and you always seem to have a new excuse every time I question you."

Laurel opened her mouth to interject but the DA raised her hand to silence her.

"I don't blame you if you've relapsed," she continued, her voice suddenly shifting to a more gentle tone. "You've been through a lot recently with the loss of your sister. I understand. There are support systems in place for situations like this. Maybe you should take some time off, focus on getting yourself back together."

Laurel ignored the insinuations. A spark of anger blossomed in her chest, helping clear the fog of fatigue from her mind a little.

"Honestly, I'm absolutely fine," Laurel said, rising to her feet. "I haven't been sleeping well lately, that's all. I'll take care of all my cases in time, like I always do. You know I'm one of the best lawyers in this office. I'll manage."

The DA examined her through narrow, suspicious eyes.

"Okay," she said, tartly. "But this is an informal warning. If I don't see an increase in job performance soon, I'm going to have to seek formal disciplinary action. Please don't make me do that."

She turned to her computer and started typing, dismissing Laurel as if she had left the room already. She obliged, walking out of her office calmly, even though her fists were clenched painfully by her sides. She wanted to punch something. She fiercely hoped Diggle had located the rest of the Bulgarians.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. She threw herself into the stack of files on her desk, keeping exhaustion at bay with multiple trips to the coffee machine. Her eyes ached in their sockets as she read through case after case that she should have dealt with weeks ago. She really had let things slide. With the Arrow gone, crime had risen across the city, and with only the three of them left to deal with it, she had spread herself too thin. She knew it, but that didn't make it any easier to accept.

By the time she looked up from her desk it was already 6pm. She was supposed to meet her dad for dinner so she packed up her things and left, even though she would definitely have benefited from working overtime to catch up. Family is important too.

Once she was inside her car she gave Diggle a call. His voice was groggy, as if he had just woken up. He didn't have good news. The Bulgarians had slipped away. They must have known exactly where to drive to avoid getting caught on security cameras. They could be anywhere in the city by now, if they were even still in the city. He sounded defeated.

"Let me try something," she offered. "I'll call you back in an hour if it works."

She hung up and sped towards the police precinct. They maybe couldn't track the Bulgarian van through the CCTV, but she knew someone who could tell her exactly where they were heading.

Quentin Lance's face lit up as he noticed her enter the precinct, the lines at the corner of his eyes furrowing. He looked tired. The months after finding out about Sara's death had been hard on him, and hard on their relationship. She still sometimes felt like she was standing on eggshells around him, scared to break an already fragile bond.

"Hey, sweetie," he said, pulling her into a quick hug. "I'm just about ready to go. You feeling like Indian food tonight?"

"Sure dad, that sounds good. Actually, I was wondering if you would do me a favour first."

His smile disappeared. He knew what kind of favours she asked of him.

"Is this going to get me in trouble?"

"Only if we get caught," she teased, smiling wickedly.

The man who split her lip open was sat across from her at a table in the police interrogation room. His hands were handcuffed securely in front of him. He was a similar age to her father, but where her dad had lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth from smiling, this man had none. He glared at her.

"You're not my lawyer," he stated, his accent twisting the words.

"No, I'm not," she said simply. "I just want to have a conversation with you."

His mouth twisted in what could have been meant as a smile. It did not reach his eyes.

"The police report says that some of your accomplices escaped the night you were arrested. Where did they go?"

He only continued to leer at her with that unsettling smile. She continued regardless.

"There have also been reports of a black vehicle carrying illegal drugs fleeing the premises. What can you tell me about that?"

No response. She slammed her fist on the table, scaring herself more than him. She didn't have time for this. The longer that van was missing, the bigger the opportunity they had to disappear.

"You ask a lot of questions," he commented. "I don't like women that ask too many questions."

He gestured towards the cut on her face.

"Looks like I'm not the only one who thinks you talk too much."

She felt a sudden flash of fear. He hadn't made the connection between her and Black Canary, had he?

"We can do this the easy way, or the hard way," she challenged. "I recommend the easy way."

He dropped the smile. There was a silent challenge in his gaze.

"I'm not telling you anything, little girl."

She rose to her feet slowly and walked around the table to stand behind his shoulder. For a brief second she imagined it was the DA sitting in front of her, accusing her of falling off the wagon, calling her a failure, threatening the career she had spent years of her life working on, a career she had only entered in order to help people. This was one man she could not help. But she could help other people from ruining their lives on the drugs his gang pedalled.

She clasped her hand over his mouth. He jumped, surprised. He had but a moment to react before she grabbed his index finger and pulled it back towards his wrist. She felt the crack as well as heard it when the bone snapped. He screamed into her hand and bucked against her. She held her hand securely until he stopped screaming. Leaning down to his ear, she whispered, "hard way it is then."

He was tough. She had to threaten to break another of his fingers before he confessed to where they were hiding. They had a warehouse down by the docks that they stored most of the their supply in. He assumed that is where they would be. The achievement she felt at getting him to talk did not replace the sickening feeling over what she had to do to make it so.

Her dad was standing nervously where she had left him in the corridor, making sure no one came their way. He was looking at her as if he already knew what she had done. She took his arm and led him back into the main office. Police officers were bustling around none the wiser.

"Did you get what you need?" he asked, tentatively.

"I got it, thanks dad," she said, patting his shoulder. "We're going to put away a lot of bad men because of this."

He smiled. He knew she was right. Even though he hadn't always approved of Oliver's methods and had, at times, been actively against vigilantes, there were some bad guys the police couldn't catch on their own

"So Indian food?" he offered. "I'm starving"

She couldn't think of anything she wanted to do less than eat but she nodded anyway. "Me too. Let me just grab my bag."

They had barely turned around to head out when a wall of the precinct exploded. Rubble and debris blew inward. Laurel tackled her father to the ground, attempting to shield him with her body. Something hard hit her in the back of the head.

When she opened her eyes, some time must have passed. People were writhing on the floor all around her. Dust and smoke filled her lungs, causing her to choke violently.

"Dad?" she choked out, her voice hoarse. "Dad, are you all right?"

She heard him coughing in response. He was lying a few feet away, a filing cabinet pinning his lower half. She crawled over to him through the rubble.

"Are you hurt?" she asked him, squinting through the dust. He had a wide cut across his forehead, blood was seeping into his eyes. He blinked it away.

"I'm fine, laurel," he lied. "But my legs are stuck."

She painfully got to her feet and threw her weight into lifting the cabinet off her father. It was made of sturdy metal and very heavy, but she eventually lifted it high enough for him to wriggle his legs out from underneath.

She was checking over his legs when she noticed people filing out of the massive entrance in the wall the explosion had made. It was the Bulgarians, all of the gang members the team had taken down in the alley the previous night. Someone had released them from their cells.

A woman came behind them. She paused. She was wearing a black and purple leather suit, the tails of her coat almost swept the ground. She was carrying a loaded crossbow at her side. Her long dark hair fell on either side of her face like silk curtains. A black mask obscured her features, but Laurel recognised her immediately.

Her father did too.

"Is that…Helena Bertinelli?" he asked.

She nodded.

The Huntress had escaped from prison.


End file.
